As a declining area is improved and the causes of blight eliminated the entire community benefits through the creation of new or restored homes, prospering businesses, more attractive public areas and parks, and renewal of civic pride.
Because you do not live in a blighted area, or because you avoid such areas, does not mean that you are safe from the effects of deterioration and decay in the community. The California Community Redevelopment Law was passed in recognition of the fact that the problems and adverse impact of deteriorating areas cannot be confined and ignored for the following reasons:
A. Deteriorating areas cannot pay their own way.
These areas require more public services such as public safety, public works, and welfare than the tax revenue produced in the area can fund. In other words, these areas are a financial drain on the rest of the community. Your tax dollars and those of our neighbors are being diverted to meet the needs of decaying and blighted areas.
B. Deteriorating areas become centers of poverty, overcrowding, crime, and disease for those who are trapped there.
These areas can become like prisons for those who are powerless to change their way of life. People living in deteriorated and oftentimes overcrowded conditions can become the victims of crime and disease which have serious social consequences.
C. There are no natural barriers to blight.
Deterioration, if not arrested, tends to expand, thereby potentially affecting the health, welfare, and safety of those living, shopping and doing business on the outskirts of the deteriorated area. Deterioration spills over its existing boundaries and so affects an ever-widening circle of residents and businesses. Like a disease, if the causes are treated in the early stages there is more likelihood of recovery.
D. Deterioration results in an economic drain on the community.
As offices, industries, services and shops leave deteriorated areas, the jobs and dollars which would have been spent there are lost. In many cases, these businesses will relocate outside the community itself. The relocation of one business encourages more firms to leave and the out-migration snowballs. Further, vacated residential and commercial structures become an economic detriment to the community through devaluation and economic depreciation. Shopping areas and jobs move farther and farther away stranding the transit-dependent and causing those with automobiles to travel farther for the basic necessities of life or to a workplace.
Residents must spend increased dollars and travel time to find employment, shopping, and recreation outside the area. Dollars, which had come to the community are spent elsewhere.
E. A deteriorating area results in a negative image which can affect development elsewhere in the community.
What an area has to offer in terms of labor, land, consumers, suppliers, transportation, and environment plays a major role in business location decisions. If deterioration is not stopped and turned around, the community could be chosen less often as the site for new business developments. A thriving community is a definite positive advantage; a decaying one can be a major deterrent to new investment. This may result in many people avoiding the community.
Blight
What is a blighted area?
Deteriorating or blighted areas have serious adverse social, economic, and physical conditions which constitute a danger to the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of the community. These deficiencies include:
Physical Deterioration
- Aging, deteriorating, unsafe, and poorly maintained buildings and structures sometimes intermingled with historically significant structures as well as some well-maintained buildings;
- In adequate and obsolete infrastructure, i.e., utilities, storm drainage, sewers, street lighting, and confusing and inefficient street systems;
- Factors that substantially hinder the economically viable lots or buildings;
- Incompatible adjacent or nearby uses that prevent economic development;
- A clutter of utility lines, jumbler of signs, and a lack of architectural unity and quality;
- Code violations and unsafe conditions; and
- Multiplicity of property owners, inadequate or irregular sized lots, and incompatible mixtures of land uses.
Economic Deficiencies
- A stagnant commercial area
- High business vacancies, low lease rates, high turnover rates, or abandoned buildings;
- Depreciated or stagnant property values or impaired investments;
- Loss of jobs and businesses
- An imbalance between government revenue and an increasing need for public services or improvements
Social Deterioration
- Poverty and unemployment
- Unsafe and substandard housing conditions
- Crime
